


No Way Out

by savingprivatesimmons (black_twosugars)



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Based on a video game, Gen, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-09 09:12:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4342700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/black_twosugars/pseuds/savingprivatesimmons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reports of disappearances and otherwise ‘unnatural’ events happening in a forest on the outskirts of Austin had risen by far in the past few weeks so Geoff had sent his two best journalists to investigate the area at night. However, things take a turn for the worst when what they find is far more than they had bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Way Out

**Author's Note:**

> [creativecockbitesnetwork](http://creativecockbitesnetwork.tumblr.com/) prompt #1: write something inspired by what first drew you to roosterteeth.
> 
> I first got into Rooster Teeth because I binged all of Michael’s Rage Quits, but it was the Slender one he did with Gavin that had me hooked on watching more <3
> 
> [I also made a fanmix to go with the fic!!](http://8tracks.com/savingprivatesimmons/run/)

Gavin shivered as the chilling wind picked up again, rustling the crunchy, dead leaves littering the floor of the forest. The beam of light from the torch in his hand wavered as his hand shook, unable to calm himself down enough to keep it still. He found himself edging towards Michael as he walked, finding comfort in the way their shoulders occasionally bumped against one another.

Gavin had seen his fair share of darkness. He’d gazed out at shadowed clouds which were only lit by the dim moon from window seats of aeroplanes. He’d had to use his phone for a source of light whenever there were power cuts in his apartment block. Hell, Geoff had even locked him in the supply closet at work before.

The point was that absolutely nothing could ever compare to how unnaturally dark the forest was. He and Michael were entrapped within the eerie shadows which swallowed every single hint of light. The foliage above their heads was so thick that not even a tiny ray of moonlight shone through; even Gavin’s torch was barely functional. It kept flickering and Gavin had to shake it to get it to work properly. Not that the small, hazy, yellow beam of light did much for them anyway.

Geoff was the one to blame for the pair being so ill-equipped that night. “The camera has night vision,” he said, “there’s no phone signal but that’s not important,” he said, “it’s not gonna be _that_ scary,” he said. The first thing Gavin was going to do when he sees his boss again was give him what for.

Their job was to investigate the forest. Numerous disappearances and instances of ‘unnatural behaviour’ had been reported, so naturally Geoff thought that it would be a great idea to send his most short-tempered journalist along with his most paranoid journalist to snoop around the forest in the dead of the night. So far his decision had only proved to be a mistake; Michael had snapped at Gavin for not calling the torch a flashlight and Gavin had already fallen over twice after getting spooked by rustling leaves.

Since his last stumble, the forest had almost been eerily silent. Apart from the occasional puff of chilling wind, the only sounds which proved that the forest contained life was their breathing – Gavin’s far more laboured than Michael’s – and the soft thuds of their boots on the dry floor. It was almost as if the whole place was dead to the world and all it did was set Gavin on-edge even more.

Suddenly a sharp crack resounded from somewhere behind them and they both whipped around to face it. Gavin frantically waved the torch around in an attempt to scan the area for anything unsavoury.

Meanwhile, Michael placed a hand on his thudding heart and breathed a sigh of relief. “It was probably another fucking bird or some shit.”

Gavin wasn’t convinced but he knew better than to argue with Michael, so he turned back around and they pressed forwards.

After a few more unnerving minutes of silence, Gavin caught a glimpse of something in the distance which somewhat reflected the beam of his torch. He flinched when he saw it, paranoia driving his instincts rather than rationality, and froze.

“What’s that?” Gavin demanded in a fearful, hollow tone.

“Hang on, lemme zoom in on it,” Michael said, lifting the camcorder up to zoom in on whatever the thing was. When he realised what it was, Michael scoffed but didn’t lower the device, opting to record everything from then on. They had spare batteries and memory cards for if they ran out, so storage and power weren’t issues. “It’s a fucking car, dumbass.”

“Oh,” Gavin said, slightly taken aback at the simple answer. He hadn’t known what he’d been expecting, but it certainly hadn’t been as innocent as a car.

As they walked closer, Gavin felt some tension seep from his shoulders when he saw the rusty, broken-down car. Its red paint was peeling, revealing a grimy and rough surface of rust, one of its wheels lay a few meters away with weeds curling around it, and most of the windows had been at least cracked, if not smashed.

However, a niggling though of doubt remained in Gavin’s mind so he voiced it. “There isn’t a road for miles, so why the hell is this here?”

“No idea,” Michael replied, setting the camera down on a tree stump so it had a full view of the car. “Is there anything inside it?”

The door on the driver’s side had been left open so Gavin pulled it open even further to take a look inside. He almost gagged instantly when the stench of mouldy fabric hit his senses, but he forced himself to persevere (only after pulling the collar of his shirt to cover his face and mouth from the horrid smell).

He was half-way through with rummaging around in the glove box when Michael muttered, “shit,” under his breath.

Gavin yelped and ejected himself from the car as quickly as he possibly could without inuring himself on the ragged metal or broken glass. He sprinted over to Michael, nerves piling back up inside his chest, and peeked over his shoulder.

The second he saw what Michael was holding, Gavin’s heart began hammering in his chest and he took a few shaky steps away from it.

The page in Michael’s hands was musty and dirty with age and poor treatment and it was slightly dog-eared and torn in places. However, that wasn’t what had spooked Gavin. It was the messy, almost child-like scrawl of “CAN’T RUN” and the other unintelligible scribbles on the page that he wished he’d never seen.

“What the fuck?” Michael sounded confused more than anything as he walked over to pick up the camera so he could document the piece of paper. “I just found this taped to the trunk of the car.”

“Can- can we leave?” Gavin begged.

“Why the fuck do we need to leave? All we’ve found so far is a broken car and a piece of paper. This place is _huge_ , there’s _bound_ to be more shit to prove that something weird happened here.”

“ _Because_ , Michael, in what world is finding some bloody creepy piece of paper with a creepy message on it _good_?!” Gavin replied, voice high and quiet with fear.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Michael muttered under his breath. “Can we just keep moving please? If we hurry, we can get enough decent footage and enough evidence so that we don’t ever have to come back to this shitty place ever again.”

Gavin considered it for a moment. On one hand, he could force them to leave so Gavin could go home, take a few swigs of whiskey and pretend this debacle never happened. However, he would also have to suffer Michael’s griping and Geoff’s disappointment when they return practically empty-handed hours earlier than expected.

“Fine.” Gavin snapped. “Let’s go.”

With a smirk that could have almost been described as devious, Michael folded up the paper and tucked it into his pocket before leading them away from the car.

The next few minutes passed relatively quietly. Gavin had grown somewhat accustomed to the occasional snap of a twig or caw of a crow that echoed throughout the otherwise silent forest.

Gavin almost leapt out of his skin when Michael suddenly halted in his tracks, eyes wide and wariness painted on his face.

“What is it?” Gavin quietly asked.

Michael stayed silent for a few more moments before shaking his head. “Nothing. I thought I heard something.” When he noticed Gavin’s look of fear amplify, he said, “c’mon, loser. Let’s go investigating.”

Gavin smirked at the reference and shook his head as he continued to walk, albeit he couldn’t help but think about what Michael might have heard. Honestly, it was probably just a bird or something – this place seemed to have loads of those things. It could’ve also been the wind, maybe even-

“Holy shit!” Michael yelped, causing Gavin to freeze in fear and shine his torch in the direction Michael was staring at, seemingly fixed on one point in the distance. “Did you see that?”

“N-no,” Gavin stammered, heart pounding in his chest so loudly that he was almost positive Michael could hear it. He edged closer to Michael and took comfort in the contact between their shoulders.

“Fuck, let’s just keep going.” He grumbled, although he certainly sounded rather unnerved as he walked. “Actually, how about you walk in front of me and I’ll check behind us for anything we might’ve missed.” It was a shoddy excuse that Gavin saw clean through; Michael was scared.

“Sure,” he said, trying to not let his voice betray his true emotions as Michael moved to stand behind Gavin. As they pressed forwards, Gavin took comfort in the steady sounds of Michael’s footsteps on the floor behind him. He had a slightly more careful pace, unlike Gavin who kept scuffing the toes of his boots in the dry leaves and dirt on the floor. Every now and then he’d kick a twig, but he was grateful for how flat the floor was.

He’d almost found comfort in the regular rhythm of their footsteps combined with the occasional soft breath of wind that rustled the trees, sending strange and unfamiliar shadows dancing along the floor of the forest.

But then there were hands on his shoulders and a loud screech right next to his ear and Gavin was throwing himself to the floor in a vain attempt to scramble away as he screamed in fear. In his flurry of unrivalled terror he somehow managed to point his torch at whatever had been behind him, but the only thing he could see was… _oh_.

Michael was doubled over, camera in-hand, cackling with laughter and wiping tears away as he wheezed. “You should’ve fucking _seen_ yourself,” he cried through his giggles.

Gavin, however, was _not_ impressed. After hauling himself to his feet, he glared furiously at Michael and whacked him in the arm, feeling a little proud when Michael winced and rubbed at the sore spot with his other hand.

“That _wasn’t_ fucking funny, Michael.” He deadpanned, voice crackling with a bitter and distasteful concoction of fury and fear.

At the sound of the curse word Gavin refrained from using combined with his strained voice, Michael rolled his eyes. “Fine,” he moaned, “I’m sorry, but it was just so _tempting_.”

Instead of gracing Michael’s half-assed apology with a response, he turned back around and marched on, annoyance and anger fuelling his determination to do the job and get out of here before any more weird crap happened.

After a few more minutes of walking, Gavin could just about hear a dull creaking sound reverberating through the forest. The echo of the sullen noise sent shivers down Gavin’s spine and he tightened his grip on the torch. Even Michael minutely edged closer to Gavin as they continued on their path.

Gavin’s breath hitched in fright as the dim torch cast a yellow-ish light over an ominous figure in the distance; it was taller and more mangled than the other trees they had come across before and its branches seemed to move of their own accord, unyielding to the wind. Tendrils of moss weaved together, brushing against the floor in a faint resemblance to a sleeping deep-sea creature.

As they crept closer, Gavin furrowed his brow in confusion when he caught a glimpse of another piece of paper tacked to the trunk.

“Should we pick it up?” Gavin asked, standing still when he was about a meter away from the tree. Call him paranoid, but he wasn’t too keen on getting too close to that tree. He didn’t know what it was about it, but there was certainly something foreboding looming in the air. Hell, even the temperature had dropped somewhat significantly ever since they’d strolled across the strange specimen.

“Well, it kind of looks like the other one we found,” Michael commented, pulling out the other piece of paper from his pocket and examining it. “So, uh, maybe it’d be useful? Besides, any evidence is good evidence,” he said, taking a step forwards.

However, he halted in his tracks when a sudden gust of wind rocked the tree, twisting it even further at the mangled and disfigured knot in the centre of its trunk. Michael only hesitated for a moment before proceeding again, shaking off any fears of the unknown.

“Don’t look…” he read aloud after taking the paper from the tree, “or it takes you.” For a split second, Gavin caught a glimpse of fear in Michael’s eyes; his indifferent smirk had faltered and it was replaced by a slightly stricken expression of concern, but it disappeared as soon as it had arrived and Michael was back to his usual self. “What kind of B-rate horror movie shit is this?” He joked, showing Gavin the scrap of paper.

Honestly, Gavin could have gone the rest of his life without knowing what that piece of paper looked like. He never wanted to look at the childish writing or the hastily scribbled drawings of a disproportioned stick-man or the old and dog-eared paper ever again. He decided then and there that he’s going to hand over this report to Ray when he gets back; he didn’t even want to work on the write-up of events.

After determining that there wasn’t anything else of use around the overgrown, crooked tree, the two continued to walk on their quest for literally anything they could use to prove the strange happenings and disappearances of the forest. They were both relieved to be shot of the eerie tree, but the creepiness didn’t stop there; they had barely been walking for a couple more minutes when a thin mist began to settle along the forest floor.

Gavin could have sworn that he could hear a faint crackling echoing through his brain, but he had no idea whether it was just the nerves or the torch shorting out or what. He tapped the side of the torch to try and stop the sound and he was left unnerved when it did nothing.

“Can you hear that?” He asked after a few more disconcerting moments of hearing the strange static sound.

“Yeah.” Michael nervously confessed, peering around their surroundings to try and find a source, but to no avail. When he found nothing, he picked up his pace. “C’mon, let’s just keep fucking moving.”

“Okay.” Gavin took a deep breath and followed Michael, unwilling to stray from his side or let the other man leave his sights for even a second. They fell into a steady rhythm of quickly pacing through the forest; they turned every now and then in an attempt to find something, _anything_ that could be enough to let them leave.

Time was a meaningless concept in the forest. It was perpetually dark and not a single beam of moonlight shone through the canopy (not that the thick layer of clouds would allow it anyway). Hours could have passed between the pair leaving the tree and arriving at the old tunnel, but then again it could have barely been minutes. Gavin honestly didn’t care. All he wanted to do was go home, but Michael was dead-set on gathering enough evidence, and there was no stopping Michael once he had that determined glint in his eyes.

Gavin held his breath as they entered the concrete tunnel. He rapidly flicked his torch to scan all around the tunnel for anything out of the ordinary as they walked through it.

When a glimpse of paper caught his eye, he wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or dismayed at the fact that there were more of the weird scraps of paper.

As Michael took a few close-ups of markings on the wall (Gavin didn’t even _want_ to know what they were), Gavin plucked up the courage to take the piece of paper from where it had been stuck to the wall.

On it, eight scribbles of stick-men with elongated arms had been drawn. Gavin almost dropped the paper as three of the eight scribbles dissolved, scattering blackened ash to the floor. He must have let out a yelp of surprise because Michael was by his side within seconds.

“What happened?” He queried, voice full of concern and curiosity as he moved the camera to film the piece of paper which was quivering in Gavin’s shaking hands.

“Th-the paper…” he stammered, “it just _melted_.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Tell me _one thing_ that has made sense ever since we stepped foot in this forest.” Gavin demanded, voice wavering with frightened rage.

“I-”

“ _Exactly!_ Nothing in this goddamn place makes sense.”

“You didn’t even let me fucking think about it!”

“Doesn’t matter. There’s something here and it’s probably pissed off at us because we’re in its forest.”

“Quit being such a drama queen,” Michael coddled, “there’s nothing but birds and trees and junk in this forest. And there’s no such thing as ‘monsters.’” He even raised one hand to make quotation marks in the air as he spat the word out as if the entire concept was ridiculous.

Gavin huffed and shook his head, unable to muster the energy to fight back against Michael this time. Instead, he handed him the paper to shove in his pocket and lead the way out of the tunnel.

Well, he _would_ have continued walking had his torch not chosen that very moment to flicker off.

“Shit,” Gavin cursed, smacking the torch in an attempt to jostle the batteries into place. It was such a rickety and old torch that he honestly didn’t know why he’d brought it; they should’ve just bought a brand new one on their drive to the forest, but they hadn’t.

“Hey,” Michael spoke up, “the camera’s fucked up too.”

As Michael showed the camera’s screen to Gavin, a sudden chill ran up his spine when he saw it. Static filled the entire screen and Gavin could almost _feel_ the crackling – it was as if the static had invaded his body and was electrifying his senses with unnerving fear. For a split second Gavin almost thought that he could see a face, but it was gone before he could get a closer look.

However, the static only lasted for a few more moments before returning to normal. Gavin’s torch also turned on, illuminating their surroundings in that same orange haze as it had always done, and they both silently thanked the stars for whatever stroke of luck had brought their devices back to life.

“Michael.” Gavin whimpered, hand shaking as he gripped tighter onto the torch.

“ _What_ , Gavin?” Michael snapped as he turned to face Gavin, an expectant expression on his face which was barely illuminated by the faint light of the torch and the screen of his camera.

“I don’t like it.” Gavin confessed, finally meeting Michael’s eyes. Instead of being met with malice and annoyance, he was met with concern and understanding.

“Dude, we’ll be fine.” Michael reassured, holding his fist out for Gavin to lightly tap his own against, and he did. “It’s probably just nearby power lines interfering with it or something… Actually, hang on just a fucking second.” In an instant he was pulling all of the scraps of paper from his pocket and holding them out for Gavin to see. “Well, we have three pages, right?”

Gavin nodded, unsure as to where Michael was going with this.

“Well, there were also three holes in that picture with the shitty doodles on it.”

“So you think…?” Gavin began, trailing off when he found that he didn’t actually want to voice his thoughts. If he was right, it meant that the night was about to get a whole lot worse.

“There are five more shitty doodles, so I think there are five more pages.” Michael stated quickly and clearly; just like ripping off a band-aid.

“And what happens when we find them all?”

“We win.” Michael replied, fires of determination flickering in his eyes. “We go home, Geoff buys us all the booze we can drink and we never go into a shitty forest at night ever again.”

“Sounds like a bloody good plan to me.” Gavin admitted, smirking at Michael who rolled his shoulders and shook his arms to rid himself of some tension before readying his camera.

“Alright, let’s fucking get moving then.”

This time, with newly refurbished confidence which had somewhat replaced some of the fear with brashness, they were barely surrounded by trees for a few minutes before they found something new. The rusty red oil tankers looked abandoned and when Michael rapped a knuckle against one he was met with the tell-tale hollow echo of the metallic pang – they were empty.

There were two rows of five tankers and after walking around the perimeter of them to check for a piece of paper – at some point ‘pages’ and ‘evidence’ had become synonymous – they walked down the centre to check the ends of the tankers.

“Fuck yeah,” Michael called out gleefully as he snatched the paper from where it had been tacked to the end of one of the tankers in the middle. “Oh, fuck no,” he groaned in dismay the second he read what the paper said.

“What does it say?” Gavin asked, regretting the question the second it was answered.

“Help me.” Michael read aloud. Then he unceremoniously shoved the page into his pocket before yanking out the one with the doodles on; sure enough, another of the unnervingly child-like scribbles had dissolved into dust.

After replacing the paper back into his pocket and readying the camera, Michael was ready to leave. Gavin, however, had frozen. He’d heard a twig snap and something had faintly rattled along one of the oil tankers.

“Michael.” Gavin’s voice wavered as he whispered, not daring to speak any louder. Michael nodded in acknowledgement and pointed the camera at Gavin. “There’s something out there.”

“Are you shitting me?!” Michael exclaimed incredulously in an unnervingly loud voice. “Quit being such a baby and fuckin’ get a move on. Geoff’s not paying us to go for a stroll in the woods, he actually wants _evidence_ that some kind of shit went down in here.”

All the colour drained from Michael’s face when he spotted something in the distance lurking just beyond one of the oil tankers; it had the build of a human, but its face was completely white and it was about 10 feet tall. There was no way that thing was human.

“Run,” he stated, too stricken with fear to say anything else. He turned on his heel and gave Gavin a shove, “ _run!_ ” he roared, breaking out into a sprint. The wind whipped Gavin’s face and the low, lean branches he ran into left a couple of small cuts on Gavin’s cheeks, but he kept running until his legs screamed in agony and his lungs burned.

Gavin caught a glimpse of some kind of small building in the distance so he headed for it, glancing behind himself for no more than a second to check that he still had Michael in tow. Once they reached the building, Gavin forced open the door, dragged Michael inside and slammed the door shut behind them, cramming the small bolt into place.

A few agonisingly slow moments passed as they held their breath, trying to listen for any tell-tale signs that they’d been followed.

“What the fuck _was_ that thing?” Michael asked, letting out a breath and allowing himself to wheeze to catch his breath.

“I don’t know,” Gavin replied honestly. “We’re not overreacting, right? That- that _thing_ was real, right?”

“No. Animals and humans and trees and shit are real. _That_ – whatever it was – is not real.” Michael deadpanned. He almost jumped out of his skin when the camera bleeped to signal that it was almost out of storage, so he deftly replaced the memory card and continued recording.

“But… but we _saw_ it. It had weird things coming out of its back, it looked _right at us_ but it didn’t have a _face_ , Michael!” Gavin sobbed, almost in hysterics from how terrified he was. His heart and head were both pounding and he felt physically sick with fear.

“Hey, Gavin,” Michael soothed, despite how shaky his voice was. He placed a quivering hand on Gavin’s shoulder and held on tightly, somewhat grounding the shivering Brit. “We’re gonna be fine. We’ve got all the evidence we need; we can go home now. If Geoff doesn’t give us a bonus for this then I’ll fuckin’ fight him.”

Gavin huffed out a laugh, feeling some of his fear dissolve as he listened to Michael’s grounding voice.

“In fact, I think I’ve got half a mind to fight him anyway. Next time he says we’ve gotta go investigate some fucking forest in the middle of fucking nowhere, I’ll tell him to send Ray and Ryan instead. Those two are fearless motherfuckers.”

Gavin nodded in agreement, weakly raising an arm to grip onto Michael’s forearm to keep it in place. “Can we leave?” He pleaded, nervously meeting Michael’s gaze in the small shed they’d found themselves in.

“Let’s make a plan first, okay?” Michael said reassuringly, but he bit his lip as if he was considering something.

“What?”

“Well, I had an idea but I don’t know how true it is.”

“I think I’ll believe just about anything right now.” Gavin truthfully confessed, tugging his jacket tighter around himself. The comfort of the familiar fabric calmed him ever so slightly and he listened intently to Michael with a clearer head than before.

“Okay,” Michael said, taking a deep breath as he pulled the pieces of paper from his pocket, unfolding them and placing them side-by-side on the workbench. As expected, another one of the scribbles had dissolved and Michael had to brush his hands on his jeans to wipe away the dust. “These are scattered all over the forest, right?”

“Yeah,” Gavin nodded, unsure what these had to do with the obscure creature lurking in the depths of the shadows out there.

“Well, when we found the second one of these,” Michael pointed to the one that read ‘DON’T LOOK… OR IT TAKES YOU’, “we heard that weird static stuff. Then when we found the third one, the one with the weird drawing on it, our lights went out. And when we picked up that fourth one,” Michael tentatively placed a finger on the one they recently found, “we saw that… _thing_ in the distance.”

“What’re you saying?”

“I’m saying that I think the creature is somehow linked to these pages.” Michael explained. “We know that there are eight pages so maybe all we’ve gotta do is find all eight?”

Gavin worried his lip as he considered this.

“What if we don’t find the pages?” He queried, but his question was answered when Michael didn’t say anything. “You don’t know.”

“Well of course I don’t fucking know. What do I look like, an expert on creepy shit? Look, if you wanted someone who knew their shit about horror then you should’ve brought Geoff instead, but there’s no way he’d get his hands dirty.”

“Okay, okay, fine. Let’s say we find these four missing pages; then what do we do?”

“We get the fuck out of here and never think of this night again.” Michael replied. “I don’t know about you, but I’m buying a fucking nightlight when I get home.”

Gavin chuckled, finding himself glad that Michael was still making jokes, the normalcy of it lifting some weight from Gavin’s shoulders. It left him feeling more confident about the situation; he felt as though they could do this.

“Alright, let’s do this.” Gavin declared, “but let’s look around in here first. There was a page in the car and in the tunnel, there’s bound to be one in here.”

“Fuck, that’s some good thinking, Gav.” Michael said before watching as Gavin shone the torch around the small shed, casting a dim, orange glow along the walls, ceiling and floor. When they turned around to face the door, Gavin was caught between his breath hitching in fear and sighing in relief when he saw the fifth of the eight pages taped to the door.

This one was another drawing; it was a scribbled rendition of the creature they’d just encountered back in the woods. Its arms were unnaturally long and it had an empty oval for a face. However, the thing that set them both on-edge were the numerous scrawls of the word “NO” repeated all over the page, surrounding the monster in the words.

“Great,” Michael drawled, “just fucking great.” He turned the camera around to aim it at his own face and he continued in his sarcastic rant, “I’m having such a fucking great time! Thanks for sending us out here, Geoff, we love our job! I can’t wait to do this again sometime!” Then he dropped the façade as quickly as he’d adopted it and glared at the camera; “if we survive this, Geoff, I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you.”

After warily opening the creaky door, Gavin pressed his weight against the doorframe and peeked out, barely even able to see more than the tiny crack he’d opened up. He slowly opened the door – carefully scanning the area and flashing his torch around for danger – before deeming it safe to leave.

“Jesus, fucking move already. There’s only three more to go, we can fucking do this shit.” Michael confidently declared in a tone Gavin recognised as the one he always used when he was hyping himself up to do something. Usually he heard it when Michael was about to send off a newly written article to Geoff for editing, but he also heard it when Michael was playing difficult (or scary) video games that he was determined to beat.

On that note, Gavin shoved open the door and began quickly power-walking in the opposite direction they had arrived from.

This time the walk to the next piece of paper was agonising; in Gavin’s mind every single ragged shadow was the monster’s silhouette, every single crunch of a leaf was its footstep, and every single flicker of his torch was some supernatural interference. Hell, even Michael was walking unnaturally close to Gavin. Their shoulders brushed and Gavin had grabbed a fistful of Michael’s sleeve when he yelped at a strange looking shadow which had turned out to be a tree stump, but he hadn’t released Michael’s sleeve since.

Gavin almost squawked in fear again when Michael nudged him in the side to get his attention.

“What’s that?” Michael asked, nodding his head to a faint glow of light coming from something a while in front of them and slightly to the right.

“No idea,” Gavin mumbled, “should we have a look?”

“Do you _want_ to be stuck here forever?” Michael raised an eyebrow and smirked. “You _know_ there’s a fuckin’ page in there. There’s got to be. There always fucking is.”

“Fine, we’ll go have a look.” Gavin huffed, releasing Michael’s sleeve so they could pick up their pace and head for what appeared to be a small building in the distance.

When they arrived, Gavin groaned aloud and pouted. The building wasn’t too large and judging by the signs on the wall in front of the entrance, it was some kind of public bathroom which housed showers, toilets and changing rooms.

“Well this doesn’t look ominous or foreboding at all.” Gavin remarked sarcastically, earning him a light thwack on the arm from Michael.

“I’ll guard the door and you can go in, alright?”

“I dunno about that…” Gavin said, clearly wary of the dangers that could already be lurking within the small building.

Meanwhile, Michael rolled his eyes and sighed. “Look, Gavin, it’ll be fine. The only scary thing in that place is probably the germs in this shithole that hasn’t been washed in decades.”

Gavin chuckled and nervously took the proffered camera from Michael.

“If I’m not back in ten minutes-”

“Jesus fucking _Christ_ , dude. I’ll be guarding the door so if anything tries to come in then I’ll fight it or something.” Michael retorted with a playful grin. “Relax. Just go in there, grab the paper, and we can carry on as we were.”

Gavin nodded resolutely. “Okay,” he replied, “I’m gonna go in.”

He tentatively took one step towards the entrance and when nothing happened he continued, walking into the dark hallway that was very dimly lit with broken and grimy lightbulbs. They barely cast more than a slight glow so Gavin gripped his torch tighter with one hand, the camera in his other, and walked until he reached the first room.

When he found nothing in there but broken and rotten showers, he carried on walking down the damp hallways. There was a thin coating of filthy water on the floor and the stench of mould was unbelievably strong; Gavin pulled his shirt up to cover his nose again and prevailed.

The very last room Gavin entered was a changing room of sorts. There were a few benches lining the walls and a couple of benches in the middle of the room, and on one of those benches was the gleaming sheet of hope; another page.

Resisting the urge to do a little happy dance – he could do that later when he’s safe at home with all of his doors locked and windows closed – Gavin picked up the page and sighed. The picture drawn on it was of a tree, and next to it was the creature, and next to that was the word “FOLLOWS” going vertical down the page.

He turned around to leave, but froze.

The creature was there. It filled the entire doorway with how tall and slender it was. Gavin’s mouth felt dry and his heart was thumping and he let out the softest of whimpers. A faint pale glow seemed to emanate from the thing’s face, but he barely spent half a second staring at it and considering his options; either call out for Michael or let it take him.

“ _IT CAN FUCKING TELEPORT, MICHAEL, IT’S IN HERE!!_ ” Gavin screeched, voice cracking and wavering with sheer terror. Looking at the silhouette of the thing in the doorway made Gavin’s head feel heavy and his vision blurry so he bolted for the corner furthest from the creature, skidded onto his knees, and squeezed his eyes shut.

He vaguely heard Michael’s footsteps hammering down the damp hallway, but it was only when warm arms were latching around his waist and holding him tight was he aware that Michael was okay. Michael was alive. The thing was gone. They were safe. Well, they weren’t _safe_ , but they weren’t dead and that was about as good as things were going to get.

Only after he felt his severe shaking had slowed enough for him to think clearly did he speak. “That was a fucking stupid idea, Michael,” he snapped bitterly. Michael’s arms tightened even more around him, holding him reassuringly close.

“I’m so sorry, Gavin,” Michael muttered guiltily. “I’m never letting you out of my sight again. Alright, dickhead?”

Gavin let out a huff of laughter at the not-so-affectionate (but comfortingly familiar) nickname. “Yeah, alright.”

“Good, now let’s get the fuck out of here.” Michael declared, standing up and hauling Gavin to his shaky feet before leading the way out of the dank building.

They ended up finding the seventh page on the side of a large rock, hidden amongst a cluster with a small walkway between them, seemingly occurring naturally rather than being artificial. The area was exposed to the dim glow of moonlight which barely managed to filter through the overcast clouds.

However, when Michael reached out to take it, he hesitated.

“What’re you waiting for?” Gavin hissed, desperation lacing his tone. He wanted Michael to take the paper; he wanted to collect all of the pieces as soon as they could; he wanted to go home.

“Well, if the freaky shit is linked to the pages then when I pick this up…” he trailed off, almost too afraid to even theorise about what could potentially happen.

“Just do it.” Gavin begged. “Do it and we can leg it in the opposite direction.”

“Alright,” Michael replied, still slightly unsure. Then, he reached out and snatched the paper off the rock.

The shadow of a looming figure was cast on the side of one of the larger, smoother rocks. The figure was without a single doubt the exact same monster they’d encountered before. Gavin took one look at it and bolted, grabbing Michael by the hand and dragging him as quickly as possible to get away from whatever the fuck had cast that shadow.

They ran for what felt like an age; their bodies ached and their lungs were on fire but they still continued to run. They weren’t going to even face the slight chance that they had been followed. Only one more piece of paper remained in the forest – they couldn’t take any risks. It wouldn’t be worth it. They were so _close_.

And then, just as Gavin was almost about to collapse from exhaustion and agony, a broken brick wall slowly came into their sights and Gavin could have sung with joy. This was it; they could _leave_ , they could finally go _home!_ Gavin was never going to agree to help Geoff with any cases which sounded scarier than a cat stuck in a tree ever again.

“Fucking _finally_ ,” Michael panted, snatching the eighth and final piece of paper from the trunk of a dead tree. This one simply read “ALWAYS WATCHES. NO EYES” and had a scribble of a circle with two crosses on it which Gavin supposed probably meant to symbolise the creature that had been stalking them all night. “Let’s fucking get out of here.”

The scrap of paper drifted to the floor the second Michael caught a glimpse of the creature which had buzzed into existence directly in front of them.

Its face was white, if it could even be called a face; the shape was void of all features and it only had hollow dips where its eyes should have been. But the longer Gavin stared at it the more it seemed like it was crackling, almost like the static on an old TV. Paralysed with fear, he slapped his hands over his mouth and felt his head buzz as he hyperventilated through his nose in a vain attempt to stay quiet. His attempts were worthless.

It had seen them. Neither of them knew _how_ , but it was the sickening dread that rattled their bones which told them that it was _watching_.

The camera in Michael’s hand fell to the floor when he flinched in terror at the tendrils of black slowly weaving their way out of the creature’s back. The black wasn’t a natural black, it was darker than all of the shadows of the forest and all of their worst nightmares combined.

A sharp ringing deafened both of them, but Gavin still couldn’t move for he was transfixed in horror and pure, unadulterated _terror_.

Then his vision blurred just like the creature’s face had before he completely blacked out and fell to the floor.

 

**_[THE TAPE ENDS HERE.]_ **

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to make this scary and spooky but I’ve never written anything like this before so I have my fingers crossed that it turns out as creepy as I’d hoped. Feedback would be appreciated!! <3
> 
> Come talk to me on tumblr at [savingprivatesimmons](http://savingprivatesimmons.tumblr.com/)!!


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